The two storey house is eight metres tall and has a floor area of 90 sq m and was printed as part of the European C3PO with financing from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
Kamp C believes that new technologies, such as 3D concrete printing, can help reduce the industry’s consumption of materials and energy, reduce CO² emissions and the waste stream, the demand for high quality and affordable housing is on the rise, and so on.
The printed house is three times sturdier than a house built with quick build bricks. “The material’s compressive strength is three times greater than that of the conventional quick build brick”, Marijke Aerts, the project manager at Kamp C, explains. This first house is a test, the researchers will now check whether solidity is retained over time.
What makes this house so unique, is that we printed it with a fixed 3D concrete printer. Other houses that were printed around the world only have one floor. In many cases, the components were printed in a factory and were assembled onsite. We, however, printed the entire building envelope in one piece onsite.
Besides the fibres in the concrete, the amount of wire mesh reinforcement used is extremely limited. As a result of the printing technology used, formwork was redundant, saving an estimated 60% on material, time, and budget. In the future, an entire house could be printed in just under two days. According to calculation, it took just three weeks to print the house at Kamp C.
The model home was designed to showcase the technology and the potential of 3D printing. “We printed an overhang, it has heavily curved walls, different types of walls… We also incorporated solutions to the traditional thermal bridge, eliminating cold bridges altogether”, says Ascione. “We developed a low energy house, with all the mod cons, including floor and ceiling heating, special façade solar panels and a heat pump, and we will also be adding a green roof.”
When we started to build it, we had no idea which use the building would have. Our aim was to print the floor area, height, and shape of an average contemporary home, in the form of a model home with multipurpose options. This is a principle of circular building. The building can be used as a house, a meeting space, an office, or an exhibition space.
The house is part of the European C3PO project, which aims to accelerate the transition to this innovative technology in Flanders. Eight partners, from the business community and the scientific community, have joined forces for the project; they are Beneens, ETIB/Concrete House, Groep Van Roey, Thomas More, Trias architecten, Ghent University, Vicré and Saint-Gobain Weber.
